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VOA – UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. secretary-general said Friday that 25 years after action was demanded at a landmark conference in Beijing, progress on women\u2019s rights has stalled and even been reversed. \u201cSome countries have rolled back laws that protect women from violence; others are reducing civic space; still others are pursuing economic and immigration policies that indirectly discriminate against women,\u201d Antonio Guterres warned at a commemoration ahead of International Women\u2019s Day, which is Sunday. Guterres told a General Assembly hall full of diplomats, activists, women and girls that bias against gender equality is growing in some countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must push back against the pushback,\u201d he said. \u201cWe cannot give way; we refuse to lose the ground we have won.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a new report, the U.N. said men still overwhelmingly hold elected positions, make more money, and have access to better jobs and education.<\/p>\n
In addition, women in many parts of the world are still trying to overcome societal obstacles, including child marriage, illiteracy, domestic violence and lack of access to family planning. Rural and indigenous women face even more hurdles, in addition to discrimination and deeper poverty.<\/p>\n
The secretary-general was joined by several trailblazing women, including the world\u2019s youngest female prime minister, Sanna Marin of Finland. She is 34 and heads a coalition government in which women lead all five parties.<\/p>\n
Finland has been at the forefront pursuing gender equality for decades, including being the first state to grant women full political rights \u2013 both to vote and to run for office.<\/p>\n
\u201cChange does not happen overnight,\u201d Marin said. \u201cWe had to harness the resources of the whole society because we simply could not disregard half of the population.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said family-friendly policies such as paid parental leave, publicly funded child care and even free school lunches played a significant role in advancing gender equality. She noted that many of these policies were introduced by female legislators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI argue that the best way to get gender transformative policies is to have more women in high-level decision-making positions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
‘We have touched a nerve’<\/strong><\/p>\n Veteran activist and author Charlotte Bunch said there was a clear reason for the backlash against gains women have made.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause we have touched a nerve; we have touched the possibility of profound social change,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Many feminists are focused on the pushback against women\u2019s reproductive and sexual rights, especially in some Western countries, including the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a backlash that understands controlling our bodies is fundamental to taking our own power to be a part of those changes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee of Liberia urged governments to move beyond the rhetoric of women\u2019s rights and take real action that will lead to change.<\/p>\n \u201cOur rights should not just be important during election season; they should be important at all times,\u201d Gbowee said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VOA – UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. secretary-general said Friday that 25 years after action was demanded at a landmark conference in Beijing, progress on women\u2019s rights has stalled and even been reversed. \u201cSome countries have rolled back laws that protect women from violence; others are reducing civic space; still others are pursuing economic and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}